"I know why you've come... they've sent you to bring me back, but that cannot happen.."

Monday, January 8, 2007

If I could sum up my 2006 WoW experience in one word it would be raiding. The majority of my time in game this past year was spent raiding.

Even with its low points (even wanting to quit the game altogether because of it) I can say overall I'm happy that I got to partake in what I consider what is unique of MMORPGs. See, I never played EQ so I didn't know anything about raiding. I'm sure some old EQ players will say I still don't. *smile*

Well, because of this past year I have a few WoW resolutions, I may add more as I think of them.

In no particular order:

1) Go to bed at a decent hour. I've lost count how many times I've stayed up wiping on a boss by choice or because I was asked to stay for "just one more try". I don't know if the final solution will be to find a new raiding guild that is closer to my own schedule or what.

2) No more catassery*. I wish I could find the blog that made me include this. That blogger said they quit WoW as soon as they realized it required catassing.

*Term as described on Urban Dictionary "Some one who plays a Online game and excludes everything else. Often used to describe when some one has a lot of time to spend in a online game.Came from a article in a newspaper on Everquest. The player they interviewed played so much Everquest he forgot to change his cats littler box, leading the reported to comment his house smelled like "a cats ass""

I use it to describe a much less smelly experience but still along the same vein - anything that requires a lot of time and I mean A LOT of time to do, you don't necessarily find fun, and by the time you finally get the end reward you think to yourself "Was that really worth it?" In the past that would include the GM grind. Grinding for a Wintersaber mount also comes to mind, or pvping not because you enjoy pvping but because you want the pvp reward.

I think alot of people did these things out of boredom, but with the Burning Crusade out there will be more things to occupy our time. I'm hoping I won't resort to catassery or if it gets to that point again, I hope I have the frame of mind to finally uninstall the game.

3) No more chasing after sets or one particular weapon. One way I made the game grind on my own was pining after a full set of this or that. One of my friends was worse than I when a set piece seemed to become an obsession. I continued to go to old dungeons long after I was extremely sick of them just for a chance at an old set piece I was missing. And when it didn't drop I dreaded going back. If I can't get a piece after a few visits (few in WoW is relative of course!) I'm going to keep moving on.

4) Learn to say no AND not feel bad about it. As a priest this is a toughie. I chose a priest to be helpful. As a result it has always been hard for me to say no when asked to help with something - although I really didn't want to. (100th UBRS run anyone?)

These are the ones I have off the top of my head.

Now the question becomes, will this fall to the wayside like many resolutions? Or will I hold strong!